How to make a safe community?

unfortunately there’s no way to moderate incoming user registrations, so I was wondering how else I can solve this problem. I would like to be able to control who joins my community to avoid fakers and spammers. Furthermore I will turn off user registrations and add an application form instead and also remove the “sign up” part, so that only ppl can log in.

The next problem would be the user profiles, b/c they are visible to all visitors. Is there any way to make it visible to logged users only? I already require very little info but still I would not want everyone to see my profile.

Profile visibility is discussed many times, and there’re even profile plugin and bp-custom hacks to keep privacy. Do search the topics.

User registrations… this is not really a buddypress thing. WordPress is lacking user management function, and I understand your frustration. However using plugins you can force users to answer certain question, otherwise user is not registered.

I’m currently finishing the BuddyPress Privacy Component. A private alpha test will be out within a week. It gives users the ability to set fine-grained privacy control (viewing rights) over all their data.

No, the privacy component will not be included in v1.1. It is on the roadmap to be a core feature of v1.2.

But, first, we need to do some private alpha testing. Then some non-private beta testing–meaning available to all. Once all the kinks are worked out of it, Andy will evaluate it and decide if it meets the criteria to be merged into the BuddyPress codebase as a core component.

Will there also be a feature like “hiding my activities” ?

The privacy component will offer a user a full suite of privacy control options for:

profile privacy filtering at the field level

privacy filtering activity stream by action

privacy filtering friends list and hiding the “Add Friend” button

privacy filtering the groups list

deciding who can instant message you

privacy filtering for blogs

privacy filtering wire posts and deciding who can post on your wire

There are also features for Site Admins that allow them to determine which privacy components are enabled (by default, all are enabled).

There are a number of new hooks and an array object that need to be available for the privacy component to function. Although the alpha versions may work with v1.1, the full-blown version is really targeted for v1.2 and will require that as a minimum.

Concerning your wire post, for some reason, I believe that I never received that email. Strange, since I do have all my email notifications set to “Yes”.

But, to answer that specific question, your direct calls to xprofile fields should still function properly. Since you are pulling your data directly from the table and not from a templatetag function, you should be fine. Now, if you want your direct calls to be subjected to privacy control, then that is a different matter. You would then need to pull your data after the fields array has been filtered.

There is a separate table that gets installed that handles all privacy object settings. The privacy component filters the fields array that populates the profile page, removing any field-level elements that a given user chooses to hide from a given viewer category.

Yes, the component will be released as a beta-version plugin that anyone can test. I have set a tentative beta-release data of September 21, 2009. It depends on a few factors, but it is a reasonable estimate.

“”I’m currently finishing the BuddyPress Privacy Component. A private alpha test will be out within a week. It gives users the ability to set fine-grained privacy control (viewing rights) over all their data. “”

But, just to be clear, the Privacy Component is not scheduled to be officially released until an estimated date of October 19, 2009. That means version 1.0 is not expected to be released until that time or later. Again, that date could be changed depending on a number of factors.

Also, up until the official release (version 1.0), it is considered to be in testing mode only. That means Site Admins are strongly discouraged from using the component in production environments. I do realize that some Admins choose to disregard such warnings and that is their prerogative.

Of course, just as with all free, open-source products, once this component is officially released, it does not mean that it comes with any guarantees other than it has been sufficiently tested and appears to be ready for prime time!